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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24114247">the pros and cons of staying alive</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>damnation of harry potter [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Harry Has Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Slytherin Harry Potter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:33:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>763</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24114247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>’he in my body repel, the touch of Satan that rots my flesh and renders me impure Bless he who shall carve his mark upon my skin and rid me of evil'</p><p>The early life of a different Harry Potter up until his fifth year.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>damnation of harry potter [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738633</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the pros and cons of staying alive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Harry is five years old, he is freak and that is all that matters.<br/>His constant are tight spaces and dead spiders and aching hunger.</p><p>               ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━</p><p>By seven, Harry knows fire.<br/>He is seven and bruised and Number Four is burning. <br/>He is sent to Aunt Marge with Dudley while the smoke still clings to his fingertips. Here, Harry knows blood and crucifixes.</p><p>He is sent to kindly priests with wandering hands. Harry is the devil and he must be impure.</p><p>              ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━</p><p>Harry is nine and he is burning.<br/>Prayers roll off his tongue and grass snakes whisper secrets in his ear.<br/>He is small and made of thorns.</p><p>Innocent like the devil, the whisper.</p><p>              ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━</p><p>Then, Harry is eleven and a door is pulled open in the shape of a giant.<br/>Harry’s too sharp and his smiles tears skin but he is all magic.<br/>(Famous, he hears, and he smiles wider. Famous and rotting, is what he wants to reply.)</p><p>The hat screams Slytherin and their judgement makes his aching smile more feral.<br/>You are a serpent, they say. You are nothing. You are everything.</p><p>He is words carved to maim and bruises tattooed on his ribs and these children aren’t ready.<br/>He feels their eyes. Oh how the Headmaster watches, how Professor Quirell sees.</p><p>He finds a friend in Blaise and his knowledge of poisons and he begins to take notice on how his head of house doesn’t look into his eyes.</p><p>(The stone is saved by three lions while Harry sleeps.)</p><p>             ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━</p><p>By his second year, Harry has perfected a smile so sweet it rots.<br/>He laughs at how the heir to a noble house lives dirt poor and muggle. It’s easy to ignore other people’s sneers when he knows how eager they are to impress.</p><p>Second year is the year he learns how to make his commands draw blood. He understand how to roll his letters to hurt so they forget to pay attention to his informal accent.</p><p>This term it is accusations to his face and hexes to the back. The Slytherins close ranks for a Parslemouth, but to the rest of the school he is their lovely Judas.</p><p>(The petrifications stop- but not by his hand.)<br/>Harry is clenched fists and waiting for twinkling eyes to stop following him.</p><p>              ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━</p><p>Then comes thirteen. Harry is thirteen and suddenly the world is tilting too far on its axis, because there is a man. There is a drunk man. There is a drunk man with a knife in his chest and his blood on Harry’s clothes. There are bruises on his thighs and a dead man at his feet.</p><p>Third year is feeling his skeleton rattle each time he walks. It is blinking and seeing red smeared hands and burning thighs.</p><p>This year there is a godfather after his life and teenagers after his attention.</p><p>So he flirts with girls and he leads boys on. He ensnares hearts and discards them. And he tells himself ’you are empty.’</p><p>Harry is thirteen and his Boggart is a younger version of himself on fire and it’s funny because only he understands that his greatest fear is weakness.</p><p>Harry breaks a werewolves leg and disappoints his criminal relative. They expect a mini James Potter but Harry has always been blunt edges and everything sour.</p><p>               ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━</p><p>His fourth year comes and Harry is cold wildfire with holy water in his veins.</p><p>Harry is fourteen and he is refined and beastly, he is dried blood and cracked mirrors. He is power and potential and now he is the one who takes.</p><p>His name is called for the tournament and his house roars in approval.</p><p>Harry watches and waits in the shadows and he thinks poor Barty, because he has seen the way this imposters eyes linger on his tie and the way his neck arches when he laughs. And Harry laughs, because he knows men like Barty Crouch Jr.</p><p>So one night after the dragons, when the polyjuice has worn off, Harry slips into his office because he is a snake and a siren.</p><p>Harry is beautiful and monstrous, so he presses his lips to his dark mark and swear him to secrecy. And he knows, if he had asked Barty would have knelt and gave his life to him.</p><p>The Yule Ball comes and go’s with Blaise on his left and a dance for Fleur.</p><p>Then there is only bowing to death politely and agreements in graveyards.</p><p>The world wants a martyr to save the world but he wants to burn it to the ground then rebuild it</p>
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